Presently, an access network (AN), or equivalently a base station, can transmit data to an access terminal (AT) by concatenating multiple contiguous time slots for transmission of a particular packet. For such a transmission, the AT buffers the data in the multiple contiguous time slots before decoding the packet. For system employing hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ), the AT will send an acknowledgment (ACK) or negative acknowledgment (NAK) indication to the AN in a time slot that is a predetermined number of time slots after the last time slot of the multiple contiguous time slots. If multiple ATs share the same set of multiple contiguous slots, then each AT will transmit its ACK/NAK information in the same slot. Unfortunately, if all ATs transmit their ACK/NAK information in the same time slot, then there is an imbalance in the power received at the AN in the time domain. In particular, there is excessive interference in the time slot where the group of ATs transmit their ACK/NAK information.
This is particularly problematic when multiple low data rate service users share a time domain resource. Examples of such services include voice over internet protocol (VoIP), real time messaging, and gaming. For example, it is likely that 128 VoIP users could share the same time domain resource. In this case, it becomes highly undesirable for all 128 VoIP users to transmit their ACK/NAK information in the same time slot.
Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus for distributing the ACK/NAK transmissions by a group of ATs in the time domain.